My Big Little Brother

Exactly 22 years ago, my mom had her second c-section and delivered a bouncing baby boy into the world, much to her 1-year-and-9-month-old daughter’s chagrin.

From the very beginning I regarded my baby brother with much suspicion, as can be evidenced by a picture he has in his album.

In the picture, my dad (who sported a thin waist and short shorts which was actually fashionable for men back then) was cradling a sleeping reddish infant in the crook of his arms and smiling down at him, while a little girl sat to his side, looking at the baby warily.

My brother and I turned out to be exact opposites in much more than our gender.

As a baby, I had straight hair that stood on end, prompting people to think that I was a boy, while he had soft curly ringlets that made him look like a girl.

In our prep school years he sported a black-toothed grin while the dentists sang praises at my sturdy set of pearly whites.

During my earlier years I was a fearless female, and was not afraid of anything – bring on the scary rides, scary movies, even the dark! But not my brother, who cried rather than get on a kiddie train, watch a horror movie or even sleep in the room when the lights were turned off.

We kept on being opposites well into our school years. I was the ideal student while he was the typical bad boy who always got my mom called to school for the troubles he caused. I liked books and girly stuff while he was into sports and drove me insane whenever he dribbled his basketball in the living room while I was talking to someone on the phone.

Perhaps it was our contrasting personalities that caused us to always be at each other’s throats. Poor Mom always had to come between us, and she always kept on saying, or should I say yelling, “Duha na lang gane mo, dili pa mo magkauyon!” (There are only two of you and you can’t even get along!)

As kids we fought physically and I’d resort to biting him. Like I said, I had strong teeth. Then he’d cry and that would catch my mom’s attention and she’d reprimand me and I’d defend myself by saying that he started it and then she’d say what all eldest kids hate: “You’re the eldest. You should understand your younger brother!”

As we grew older, my brother, to his credit, was a gentleman and never used his brute force against his weak sister. So we resorted to shouting matches. We fought over everything – the remote control, household chores, our opinions. Yes, it’s safe to say that we were at war 70% of the time.

Yes, 30% of the time there was actually peace. As a baby, I had difficulty pronouncing my R’s so when my parents coaxed me to call out my bro’s full name, Ivan Eric, I ended up calling him “Ivan Eyk.” The nickname stuck, and during our affectionate moments, we all call him that.

As kids, we’d reenact the show “Maskman” using my dolls. He used the teddy bears to play the males. Of course, this was before he found new playmates and discovered that it was uncool for boys to play with dolls.

We also loved the backstreet boys (yes, my tigasin bro actually liked that boyband!), watched the same cartoon shows and hated noontime variety shows, so we only argued over the remote control when he wanted to watch sports, which bore me to death.

But the first time my brother and I actually became close was when he had his first girlfriend. Since he was a toughie frat guy who had only guy buds and knew nothing about the opposite sex, he needed a girl’s advice on how to handle a girl, and what better person to ask than his own sister, adviser ng bayan?

From then on we were friends, and the house was unnaturally peaceful, much to our parents’ delight.

Now we are miles away from each other, and I find that we are closest when we are farthest. We have never fought eversince I moved out, and he texts me once in a while. It took two decades, but it finally happened. My brother and I are on the same side. Happy birthday, Ivan Eyk!